Paracel Islands - 20th Century Events

20th Century Events

• In 1930, France claimed the islands on behalf of her protectorate based on the fact that Emperor Gia Long had officially taken possession of the Paracel Islands in 1816, and that Emperor Minh Mạng had sent a mission to build a temple and erect steles there in 1835.
• In 1932, French Indochina and the Nguyen dynasty of Vietnam annexed the islands and set up a weather station on Pattle Island.
• In 1939, Empire of Japan invaded and occupied the islands from the French. The official reason for the Japanese invasion was that the islands were Chinese territory and Japan was at war with China.
• After World War II, Nationalist China reaffirmed its sovereignty over the islands like other islands in the South China Sea, and dispatched patrol force to the islands, but this was challenged by the French.
• After the fall of the nationalist regime in China in 1949, the Chinese gained control of the eastern half of the Paracel islands. Several small clashes occurred between the French and the communist Chinese naval forces during this period, but eventually a de facto line of control was established with the Chinese occupying Woody Island and the Macclesfield Bank while the remainder were held by Franco-Vietnamese forces.
• In 1951, at the international Treaty of San Francisco conference, Vietnam's representative claimed that both the Paracels and Spratlys are territories of Vietnam, and was met with no challenge from all nations at the event. However, neither mainland China nor Taiwan participated at the conference. Separately, the Taiwan negotiated and signed its own treaty with Japan regarding the islands on April 29, 1952.
• In 1954, according to the Geneva Agreements, which was signed by a number of nations including China, Vietnam was partitioned into two states, North Vietnam and South Vietnam. The 17th parallel was used as the provisional military demarcation line, which was effectively extended into the territorial waters. The Paracel archipelago lies below this line and belongs to South Vietnam accordingly.
• In 1956, after the French's withdrawal, South Vietnam replaced the French to have control of the islands. Again, both China and Taiwan politically and diplomatically condemned the decision and reaffirmed their control over the islands. Although the South Vietnamese inherited the same French claim over the entire Paracel Islands, the period was marked by the peace and both sides held onto what was in their control without venturing into other's domain. At the same time, maps and other official documents of the North Vietnam government during this period had shown that the islands belong to China, mainly due to the fact that China was the largest backer of North Vietnam during the Vietnam War.
• On 4 September 1958, the government of China proclaimed the breadth of its territorial sea to be twelve nautical miles which applied to all its territory, including the Paracel and Spratly Islands. Ten days later, the prime minister of North Vietnam, Phạm Văn Đồng, in his letter to Zhou Enlai stated that his government had recognized declaration of the Chinese government. Regarding this letter, there have been many arguments on its true meaning and the reason why Phạm Văn Đồng decided to send it to Zhou Enlai. One important fact is that the letter while accepting the 12 nautical mile principal for the limit of territorial waters of China, has never mentioned a word about how the territorial boundary was defined and thus leaving the dispute on South China Sea islands as its status quo for later settlement. In an interview with BBC, Dr. Balazs Szalontai provided an insight into this issue: "The general context of the Chinese declaration was the United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea, held in 1956, and the resulting treaties signed in 1958, such as the Convention on the Territorial Sea and Contiguous Zone. Understandably, the PRC government, though not being a member of the U.N., also wanted to have a say in how these issues were dealt with. Hence the Chinese declaration of September 1958. In these years, North Vietnam could hardly afford to alienate Communist comrad China. The Soviet Union did not give any substantial support to Vietnamese reunification, and neither South Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem nor the U.S. government showed readiness to give consent to the holding of all-Vietnamese elections as stipulated by the Geneva Agreements. On the contrary, Diem did his best to suppress the Communist movement in the South. This is why Pham Van Dong felt it necessary to take sides with China, whose tough attitude toward the Asian policies of the U.S. offered some hope. And yet he seems to have been cautious enough to make a statement that supported only the principle that China was entitled for 12-mile territorial seas along its territory but evaded the issue of defining this territory. While the preceding Chinese statement was very specific, enumerating all the islands (including the Paracels and the Spratlys) for which the PRC laid claim, the DRV statement did not say a word about the concrete territories to which this rule was applicable. Still, it is true that in this bilateral territorial dispute between Chinese and Vietnamese interests, the DRV standpoint, more in a diplomatic than a legal sense, was incomparably closer to that of China than to that of South Vietnam". Some international scholars argued that, Pham Van Dong who represented North Vietnam at that time has no legal right to comment on a territorial part which belonged to the South Vietnam (according to Geneva Treaty). Therefore, the letter has no legal value and is considered as a diplomatic document to show the support of the government of North Vietnam to the PRC at that time.
• On 19 January 1974, the Battle of the Paracel Islands occurred between China and South Vietnam. After the battle, China gained control over the entire Paracel Islands.
• In 1982, Vietnam established Hoang Sa District in Quang Nam-Da Nang covering these islands.